


for my wild

by vixleonard



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gender Roles, Motherhood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 06:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18772891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixleonard/pseuds/vixleonard
Summary: Set post 8x04, Arya tries to find out who Arya Stark is now.





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> "Wolf and Woman" by Nikita Gill
> 
> Some days  
> I am more wolf   
> than woman  
> and I am still learning  
> how to stop apologising  
> for my wild

She thought there would be _something_ when she finally killed Cersei, crossed off that last remaining name from her list, but as she watches the queen’s body fall, her blood staining the tile Lannister crimson, Arya realizes she doesn’t feel _anything_. She waits, watches as she writhes and struggles, as she clutches at her ruined throat, as she gargles through her last breath, and even when she is still, even the God of Death has taken her, there is nothing: no relief, no happiness, no sense of contentment. Cersei Lannister is just dead.

So is Father.

So is Mother.

So is Robb.

So is Rickon.

So is Syrio.

So is Beric and the Hound and Maester Luwin and Jory Cassel and Old Nan and Ser Rodrik and Theon and Grey Wind and Lady and Summer and Shaggydog.

No matter how many eyes she shuts, no matter how much evil she attempts to avenge, no matter how many times her blade finds its mark, they are still dead, and they will never come back to her.

She’d lied to the Hound, she realizes as she stares at Cersei’s empty corpse. If she survived this fight, she planned to return to Essos, to start life somewhere else as someone else, to try to forget once her business was done, but it’s wrong. Sansa, Bran, Jon, they’re still here. The pack is small and slightly splintered, but it survives.

She forces herself not to think of anyone but her siblings, most certainly not a recently legitimized armorer’s apprentice who thinks she’s beautiful and wants her to be his wife.

* * *

Arya rides North while the rest of them try to sort out what happens now. She doesn’t care about thrones, never has and never will, and the politics of it all exhaust her. And if she’d heard from Ser Davos that Lord Baratheon would be arriving from Storm’s End in a few days’ time, well, she certainly acted as if it didn’t matter to her.

She used to laugh at those girls who let themselves get lost in boys, who simpered and sighed and thought going to bed with them meant something special. And now here she was, alone and brokenhearted, trying to figure out why she’d gone to him the night before they’d battled the Dead, why she’d sought him out after they’d won, stunned that she’d survived, ecstatic that he had, pulling him into her chamber for two minutes of desperate celebration that left her understanding why she and several of her siblings were conceived before, during, and after wars.

 _You don’t really love him_ , she tells herself when the emptiness in her heart starts to ache with physical pain. _And he doesn’t really love you. You said it yourself: he doesn’t know any other rich girls. But he will._

And once the eligible young ladies of Westeros meet the handsome Lord Baratheon, Arya knows Gendry will quickly realize he can do better than a broken Northern girl who does not even own a gown.

* * *

When she rides through the battered gates of Winterfell, Sansa is standing in the yard with some of her men. She smiles at Arya as she climbs down from her horse, excusing the men, and as Arya leads the horse towards what remains of the stables, Sansa drawls, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“You should know better than that. I’m hard to kill.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Arya stops, meeting her big sister’s gaze steadily. “It’s different now, but…It’s still my home.”

“ _Our_ home.” Sansa’s smile becomes wider. “I could use some help.”

“You don’t need my help.”

“Need? No. Want? Yes.” She shrugs. “The dead have risen. Dragons returned. The two of us working together cannot be the strangest thing in this world.”

For the first time since leaving Winterfell months earlier, Arya truly smiles. “Not the strangest, no.”

* * *

Her pants no longer fit. At first Arya thinks nothing of it. For the first time in years, she has more than enough to eat, and she is often ravenous after a full day of working on rebuilding Winterfell. She finds larger pants and asks one of the servants to let out the ones that are too tight.

She’s never bound her breasts because there’s never been a need, but the added weight has also extended to her chest. The first time she finds a breast band, she nearly weeps from the tenderness of her breasts, and she decides she must’ve tied it too tight to cause so much pain. It takes a few attempts before she’s able to wrap it around herself with only minimal discomfort. When she catches her reflection in the mirror, her breasts now bound and more plentiful than they’ve ever been, bright blue veins easy to trace beneath her skin, she thinks she may stop eating so much so they return to normal and stop getting in her way.

The exhaustion comes out of nowhere. One day she’s able to work from dawn until dusk and help Sansa with ledgers after supper, but lately she finds herself nodding off during midday meal, almost falling face first into a bowl of soup one afternoon. Brienne catches her that day, suggesting she may be coming down with something and mayhaps some sleep will do her well. However, Arya swears she’s even waking exhausted, ready to sleep again before even climbing from her bed. It is this more than anything that makes her finally admit she may be ill and look for Sam.

“I’m not a real maester,” he reminds her when she asks for an examination, stuttering through the sentence. “Maester Wolkan – “

“Smells of some terrible onion paste he puts on his food that turns my stomach, so I’d rather have a quarter-maester than a full one.” Arya takes a seat atop the table where he has stacked some books. “Maester Luwin used to say I was the healthiest one in the castle, so I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Arya answers his first few questions with no problem, but each time his brow furrows more, she wonders if she shouldn’t have sought out a real maester after all. She is about to suggest doing just that when he manages, “I’m sorry to ask – and if you don’t want to tell me, I understand – but do you – your moonblood – have you - ?”

“Have I bled? Not regular but yeah, going on three years, I think.”

He nods. “And have you – Are you – Well, you’re not married.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Is that a malady?”

Sam chuckles. “No, I’d say not. But since you’re not married, you’re not – That is to say, you’re a lady – “

“I’m not.”

“A lady of House Stark,” he quickly corrects, “so it eliminates the most obvious answer.”

“Which is?”

“Pregnancy.”

Arya hasn’t felt this cold since the Night King’s hand clamped around her throat. “Pregnancy?”

“Right, but since you’re a maid – “ Sam stops, eyes going wide. “I mean…you _are_ a maid, aren’t you, Lady Arya?”

She just shakes her head, uncertain her voice will work. With an impatient tug, she untucks her tunic, rucking it up under her aching breasts to reveal her stomach, scars and all. When she nods at him, Sam steps forward with caution, his hands carefully prodding and pushing at the firmness of her middle. Arya’s never much thought about what maesters learn at the Citadel, but Sam seems smart and his own lady is about to enter the birthing bed again. It’s why when he meets her gaze, an expression of uncertainty and encouragement on his face, Arya’s stomach near drops to her feet.

“Fuck.” Pushing Sam’s hands away, she orders, “Don’t tell anyone, not even Jon.”

He quickly nods but rushes after her as she attempts to leave to say, “But you will not be able to hide it much longer. I’d say you’re near five moons gone. It’s too late for moon tea.”

Arya thinks of Gendry’s grin as they’d pushed at each other’s clothing, laughing into each other’s mouths and then moaning into them as he pressed her against the wall of her chamber. “I know how long it’s been.”

* * *

It doesn’t surprise her to find Bran in the godswood, his chair in the same spot it was the night Theon died protecting him, the night Arya saved the world defending him.

Arya comes around, bending down so she can look him in the eyes. There isn’t much there now, not like when they’d been small. She wishes he was still her Bran, still the little brother and playmate she’d always bested at archery.

He tilts his head and opens his mouth, but Arya presses one gloved finger against his lips.

“Can you be Bran right now? Are you even still in there? Can you…come back?”

He shakes his head. When Arya pulls her hand back, he offers, “I’m too much the Three-Eyed Raven to just be Bran Stark again.”

Arya crosses her arms over her middle, winces at the pressure it puts on her breasts, and drops her arms in defeat. “Do you know then? Have you seen it?”

He nods.

“Can you see the future? Can you tell me it’s going to be okay? Can you tell me if it will be a disaster?”

Bran’s mouth twitches into the closest approximation he has to a smile. “It will be exactly as the king wanted it to be.”

Arya really misses the days when she could push Bran over for being annoying.

* * *

She isn’t certain who looks more shocked by her announcement: Ser Brienne or Sansa.

“I don’t understand,” Sansa finally manages to get out, looking at her sworn shield with confusion.

“I think – What Lady Arya is saying is…” Brienne looks at her, uncertainty on her own features. “I’m sorry, Lady Arya. Is this a jape?”

Rolling her eyes, Arya turns to the side, pulling up her shirt and loosening the ties of her trousers. Though it isn’t as obvious as Gilly’s belly, the rounded curve of Arya’s stomach is evident now. Sansa gasps, a hand pressing to her mouth, and Arya thinks this may be the most surprising thing she’s ever done in her sister’s eyes.

“It’s not the Hound’s, is it?”

Arya jerks at the question, dropping her shirt and retying her trousers. “What? No! Why would you say that?!”

“Because the only men I’ve seen you speak to here are Jon, Bran, Ser Davos, and the Hound, and I’m fairly certain three of those men are out of the running for obvious reasons.”

There is a pointedness in Brienne’s gaze now that Arya avoids as she looks at her sister. “Well it wasn’t. It isn’t.”

“Then whose is it?”

“Mine!” Twisting her hands in the bottom of her shirt, Arya repeats, calmer and more deliberate, “It’s mine. And yours. And Bran’s even, the little bits of Bran that are left. It belongs to House Stark.” She smirks. “If that’s all right with the Lady of Winterfell.”

Sansa smiles even as tears swell in her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“So you’ve been saying since we were children.”

She gets to her feet, coming around the table to properly embrace Arya. Arya feels dwarfed by her sister, and she hopes the babe will be tall like Gendry.

Then she realizes what she thought and instead hopes she forgets.

* * *

“Why aren’t we allowed to tell Jon he’s going to be an uncle?”

Arya doesn’t look up from the ledgers. “Because he has enough to worry about while he’s in King’s Landing, and I don’t want to upset him.”

“He won’t be upset with _you_.”

_No, he’ll be upset I bedded down with a man who loved me so much, he proposed marriage, and instead of accepting, I sent him away. And if I tell him, he’ll tell Ser Davos, and Ser Davos will tell Gendry, and I cannot see him again if I am going to stay strong._

“Men are weird when it comes to their sisters.” Making a correction to Sansa’s sums, she adds, “Even if their sisters are their cousins.”

Sansa laughs.

* * *

One afternoon, not long before she enters the birthing bed, Arya sees Brienne cleaning her sword and blurts out, “Would you ever give it up?”

“What?”

“Being a knight. Being your own person. Would you ever hang up your sword, become someone’s lady, someone’s mother?”

A look of such sadness overcomes the older woman’s face, Arya instantly regrets asking the question. But before she can take it back, Brienne says, “I would hope that the man who loved me would love both parts of me.”

“Both parts?”

“I never had a mother. She died when I was a child. Your mother was a true and proper lady, the sort I imagine my mother was. That is what they were raised to be. It is easy to be a proper lady when you are pretty and like the things you are supposed to like. It is harder for women like us.”

“I’m good at killing things. I might be shit at being a mother.”

“Your father slayed Ser Arthur Dayne in combat. He must’ve been good at killing too.” She looks at Arya with a knowing smile. “Was he a good father?”

“Yes.”

“And your mother, she showed me the scars on her hands from where she wrestled a Valyrian steel dagger from a cut throat’s hands when he tried to kill your brother. She had a spine of steel. Was she a good mother?”

Arya nods.

“There are times when the world is black or white, but I don’t think this is one of them.” Brienne smiles. “Besides, I will need you to be both. There’s no one else in the entire North who can challenge me at all with sparring.”

* * *

Her daughter goes without a name for three days after her birth. This doesn’t bother Arya as she spends most of those three days recovering from injuries more painful than the stab wounds she took in Braavos, and the baby is either with the wet nurse or Sansa. She considers just letting her sister name the child herself, already feeling the impulse to detach, to run, to not feel the overwhelming waves of emotion threatening to drown her.

And then she looks at the little bundle in the cradle, a cap of silky black hair, tiny little fists, and Baratheon blue eyes that open every so often as if to make certain Arya is still there, and Arya knows she is well and truly fucked.

Even though she knows her daughter will never be a stag, Arya still feels as if she should give her something of Gendry’s house. She was never good at her histories, especially for houses that were not her own, but she remembers some stories. And when she thinks of the Baratheon women, all that comes to mind are the sisters they once called the Four Storms, and so she names her daughter after that long-ago woman.

“Cassandra Snow,” she whispers to the baby, and the baby opens hers eyes, blinks her impossibly long lashes, and falls back to sleep.

When she finally sends the raven telling Jon of her daughter, introducing her as Cassandra Snow and apologizing for not writing sooner, she sits in the rookery, debating whether to send another to Storm’s End. She does not even know where to begin or what to say, doesn’t want to hurt him or upset him even more than she did that evening at the feast.

So instead she leaves the rookery and vows once and for all to put Gendry behind her.


	2. After

There had been a time when nothing distracted Arya Stark from a fight. It was the way she’d been trained, by Syrio and Jaqen and even the Waif: distraction meant death. She was always meant to be aware of her surroundings but never waste a precious second looking away from the true fight. In another life, if Arya Stark had been crossing swords with Brienne of Tarth, a child’s shout would barely have even registered in her mind. But today, when an indignant shout is followed by a thump and then a cry that is equal parts a howl and a roar, Arya drops her sword at once, her feet already rushing towards the sounds.

This time it is a kitchen maid’s son, a frequent playmate of Little Sam, who is trying his best to pull Cassandra off of his friend. Posey, Little Sam’s sister only a few moons older than Cassandra, in on her backside, tears running down her cheeks, and Arya spots Posey’s favorite doll near one of the boy’s hands. The boy reminds her a bit of Hot Pie when they’d first met, large and not overly smart, and Arya suspects he’d made the poor decision of teasing Posey by taking her doll and mayhaps even giving her a shove. And if he’d done that, it doesn’t surprise Arya at all that her daughter decided to avenge this injustice by flying at the older, larger boy with fists and feet flying.

Arya hooks her arm around her daughter’s ribcage, lifting her easily off of the boy who had, thankfully, gotten his hands up fast enough to keep her from doing any real damage to his face. Her feet and arms continue to flail, outrage at being picked up now overpowering outrage for her best friend, and Arya winces as a heel catches her just beneath the knee cap.

“Enough, Cass!” she orders, hoisting her daughter further up her body. Turning her eyes on the boy, Little Sam, and Posey, she asks, “You hurt?”

The boy shakes his head. “We was – we was just playing, m’lady – “

“Liar!” Cass spits, trying to gain enough leverage from throwing her body back against Arya’s to kick out one of her long legs. “He hurt Posey! Called us babies!”

“It wasn’t kind of him, Lady Arya,” Little Sam offers, literally wringing his hands as he attempts to keep the peace, “but I was taking care of it. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt Posey.”

Twisting Cass’s still squirming body around and tucking her beneath one arm, Arya jerks her head towards the castle. “On your way then. And I’d best not hear about any more bullying the little ones, understood?”

As Little Sam hurries his friend and Posey away, Arya starts back towards the practice yard, Cass still tucked beneath her arm. Now no longer struggling, her daughter is basically dead weight, and if this didn’t happen, at least, twice a week, Arya’s arm wouldn’t have the strength for it.

“Am I in trouble?” Cass finally asks as Arya sees Brienne finishing putting away the practice weapons.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to thump me?”

Despite the fact that Cass has never been hit once in her life, ever since hearing one of the smallfolk threaten to do it to their child, she has been fixated on getting thumped. “No.”

“Are you going to tell Aunt Sansa?”

“Yes.”

Cass is quiet for a moment, still dangling, before requesting, “Could you thump me instead of telling Aunt Sansa?”

It is only four years of practice in raising her little hellion that keeps Arya from smiling. “No. Mayhaps if Aunt Sansa makes you practice a thousand stitches, you’ll finally listen since you don’t seem to listen to me.”

It is only after Arya finally sets Cass back on her feet that her daughter begins to mount her defense. “I listen!”

“That’s why you’re fighting in the yard again, ‘cause you’re such a good listener?”

It’s a terrible and beautiful thing to see yourself in your child, and as Arya watches Cassandra’s temper flare bright before settling into something more like frustration and sadness, she remembers that overwhelming sense of being helpless and little in a world designed to beat down people who were both. 

“I was right,” Cass finally says, crossing her arms over her chest, dirty face scrunching in consternation. “He’s bad.”

Arya sighs, crouching down to meet her daughter’s gaze. She reaches out, pushing a wild strand of black hair out of her eyes. “Even if you were, you still can’t go around beating up everyone who is. You’ll get real tired, and eventually you’ll hit someone bigger who will hit you back and hit you harder. You’ve got to use your words first.”

“What if he don’t listen?”

This time Arya smiles, leaning in until their foreheads touch. “ _Then_ you hit him.”

* * *

She hears Sansa’s voice before she even reaches the top of the staircase, her sweet soprano carrying down the hallway from Cass’s open door. Arya stops, listens as Sansa sings about Florian and Jonquil, and if she closes her eyes, for just a moment, Arya is a child again herself, Sansa is singing while Mother and Father still talk downstairs, while Rickon and Bran attempt to escape bath time with Old Nan.

Sansa only sings for her niece, and Arya is grateful for that. As much as the sound of Sansa’s songs break Arya’s heart and remind her of a place she’ll never be again, she also doesn’t want Cassandra to live in a world without them.

Fresh from a bath, her near waist-length black hair combed and woven into one of Sansa’s perfect braids, a nightgown covering her gangly, bruised limbs, the little wolf from earlier in the day has been replaced by a pliable little lady who only seems to come around when her aunt is near. Sometimes it frustrates Arya how she seems to get the fights, the outbursts, the wild behavior that leads to injuries while Sansa gets a sweet little thing who lets her hair be braided, her face be washed, and wants to do nothing more than please her aunt. 

But, then again, Arya isn’t much good at braiding hair and even worse at figuring out what pleases her.

“Another,” Cass requests, the word already slurring with sleep around the edges.

“I’ll sing another tomorrow.” Sansa leans over, pressing her lips to Cass’s forehead. “It’s too late as it is. Growing girls need their sleep.”

“’M not sleepy.”

“Of course not, sweetling.” Sansa casts her eyes towards Arya, lingering in the doorway and, when Arya shakes her head, she says, “All right, I shall see you in the morn. If you need something in the night, come to my room.”

Cass nods, eyes drooping shut. “Yes, Aunt Sansa.”

It isn’t until both she and Sansa are in the hallway, Cass’s chamber door firmly shut, that Sansa asks, “Not better then?”

“Not yet.” Arya shrugs. “This time of year is always the worse.”

“And unfortunately it’s not going to get better.” Sansa reaches into her pocket and removes a slip of paper, handing it to Arya. “Court is coming to Winterfell.”

“Fucking hells.”

Usually Sansa clucks over her cursing, insisting they need to set a good example for Cass. This time, however, she nods. “Exactly.”

* * *

It isn’t that they are against Queen Daenerys and Jon exactly. It is more that neither she nor Sansa truly forgave Jon for choosing to remain in King’s Landing with his aunt-turned-wife rather than returning to Winterfell. And when they actually wed, winter had come with enough of a ferocity that it kept travelling South near impossible. Spring had really only started to come in the past six months, the snows and ice melting and clearing the kingsroad once again. They sent ravens, congratulating Jon on his wedding and the eventual births of Prince Benjen and Prince Aemon, and mostly appreciated that winter made it impossible to be called to court, to have to deal with the rest of Westeros. Sometimes it was easy to pretend there _was_ no rest of Westeros, that the world was Winterfell and only Winterfell.

Bran assured them everything was fine in the South, that he would warn them of any potential threats. Given that he hadn’t yet raised any alarms, Arya hopes it means this visit is no threat to them.

Arya wakes from restless sleep to little hands beating on her chamber door. She smiles even as she rolls out of bed, moving to unbar the door. There are few hard and fast rules at Winterfell, but attempting to wake Arya could lead to an attack, years of being on the defense ingrained too deeply inside her. Normally she wouldn’t bother with the bar, but since Cass started walking, Arya lived in fear that one morning her daughter would try to slip into her bed and she’d injure her on accident.

Arya flings open the door, playfully shouting, “What giant is beating down my door?!” and Cass giggles, instantly launching herself into Arya’s arms. Arya catches her with ease, spinning her around before tossing her onto the bed with a squeal, and Cass quickly scrambles up onto her feet, wrapping her arms around one of the posts of Arya’s bed as Arya begins to dress.

“Will I get those?” Cass asks as Arya strips off her sleeping shirt.

“What?”

Cass reaches out her little hand, her fingertips brushing the scars from the Waif’s knife. “Your stripes. Will I get stripes?”

Arya’s stomach flips at just the idea of it. She catches Cass’s hand, lifting it to her lips and pressing a kiss to her fingers before selecting a tunic to wear for the day. “No, pup. Only unlucky people get stripes.”

“Am I lucky?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t tell Aunt Sansa you were fighting yesterday.” Arya grins at Cass’s unimpressed look, but her daughter’s displeasure is quickly forgotten when Arya turns so she can climb upon her back. “And you’re lucky because if it gets warm enough today, I’m going to take you swimming.”

Cass bounces in excitement, her long legs squeezing Arya’s sides as if she was a horse. “Can Posey come?”

She smiles. “I’ll ask Gilly.”

As they head down to break their fasts, Arya forgets about everyone headed towards Winterfell. Right now all that matters is teaching Cass to swim.

* * *

On the day Jon and the rest of court is meant to arrive at Winterfell, Arya wakes early to go for a ride. She has never quite managed to learn to feel fully at home in one place after so much time spent wandering, and when she gets the urge, she saddles up her horse and rides. Sometimes she camps out a few days; sometimes she volunteers to visit holdfasts for Sansa. Now that Cass is older, sometimes she will bring Cass with her, holding her tight against her as they race through the woods, loving the sound of Cass’s laughter and squeals of excitement; she’s taught her to make a simple snare, how to start a fire, how to find water. On her next name day, Cass will be five, and Arya has started to think about her father and King Robert, being sent away to Jon Arryn for fostering when they weren’t much older. Arya has no desire to send away her daughter, but she _has_ started to wonder if mayhaps she should leave Winterfell with Cass, show her the wider world.

As Arya watches the sun rise over the wolfswood, seated atop her horse to take in Winterfell and its surroundings, Arya wonders which is better: to show Cass the world so she knows how to prepare for it or keep her at Winterfell where all she’ll know is safety and home.

“You know you can stay here forever,” Sansa said when Arya first broached the topic with her a few weeks after the raven announcing Jon’s visit arrived. “This is your home. It’s Cass’s home. One day she can be the Lady of Winterfell.”

“She isn’t a Stark.”

Sansa snorted. “You are a Stark, so she is a Stark. Jon could legitimize her, make her Cassandra Stark in a pen’s stroke.”

And that keeps Arya up at night as well. Cassandra Snow belongs to Arya and Arya alone; she is loved and cherished by those at Winterfell, but Cassandra is hers. If she becomes a Stark, if she becomes the Lady of Winterfell, Cass will belong to all of the North just as Sansa does. Arya isn’t certain she wants that for her daughter, especially when she is not old enough to make the decision herself.

As the day dawns, Arya wonders how her parents raised so many children. Arya’s heart feels pulled apart in a thousand different ways over just one.

* * *

All of the children are so excited about “the king” coming, it almost makes Arya smile watching them line up to greet him. Jon has become something of a legend in the North, the dragon hidden in plain sight, the man who rose from the dead, the man who helped bring peace to the kingdoms, and his legend is only supported by Sam, who speaks of his best friend often to his children. All of the Tarlys are dressed in their best to greet the court, Little Sam trying very hard to stand still, Posey spinning in her gown to make the skirts flare and knocking into Gilly, baby Poppy fussing each time she’s jostled.

Sansa insisted on Cassandra wearing a gown, and while Cass doesn’t hate skirts the way Arya does, she dislikes anything that potentially interferes with her ability to play. Of course, she also immediately adores anything the color green, which Arya’s savvy sister knew as well, having made the gown with this in mind. It suits Cass’s coloring, her black hair pinned back on the sides and falling around her shoulders in natural curls, her blue eyes bright. She is tall for her age, almost as tall as Little Sam, but she has Arya’s thinness, making for a child of long limbs and sharp edges, her collarbones sharp enough to slice.

“She’ll be a great beauty someday,” Bran says when he notices Arya watching her. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t be.” Bran’s lips twitch into the closest thing he has to a smile. “She’ll be a great fighter too.”

 _I don’t want her to have to fight_ , Arya almost says but the Targaryen banners are riding through the gates, Jon already visible near the front of the column, and Arya does not want to get into Bran seeing Cass’s future right this moment.

And then Arya sees more banners, black stags dancing across a yellow background, and she wonders if it is too late to run.

* * *

She doesn’t want to look at him, doesn’t want to acknowledge he’s even there. In some ways it reminds Arya of when Cass was just over a year old and would giggle and gasp, convinced she was disappearing when she closed her eyes so Arya couldn’t find her. It is a special skill she learned in Braavos, learning to see without seeing, and though she hasn’t practiced those skills in years, Arya finds her body screaming for her to fall back on her training.

He’s so fucking handsome, and she hates him for it. Apparently being a lord has agreed with him. He isn’t as skinny now, regular meals adding weight on top of the muscle he earned being an armorer, and though she doubts he’s shaping steel at Storm’s End, he’s somehow bigger, more muscular. His hair has grown some since the last time she saw him, but it’s still short, tidy, nothing like the longer shagginess he’d sported when they were kids. Unlike most of the men, he was still clean shaven, and in his black lord’s clothing, no one would ever know he’d spent most of his life as Gendry Waters, a bastard armorer’s apprentice and her best friend.

And then Jon asks after embracing Sansa, “Which one of these little ladies is my niece?” and Gendry’s eyes cut instantly to Arya, and Arya cannot stop herself, closing her eyes just for a moment as Cass shouts, “Me!”

Arya opens her eyes just in time to see the surprised expression on Jon’s face fall behind a pleasant expression as he kneels down to be the children’s level. “And who might you be, sweetling?”

“Cassandra Snow, your grace.”

It’s been nearly five years since she’s last seen her brother – and he will _always_ be her brother, no matter what their actual blood says – but Arya still sees the subtle flinch he makes at the sound of the bastard name coming from her lips. “You don’t have to call me ‘your grace.’ You can just call me Uncle Jon.”

“You can call me Cass. Or pup! Sometimes Mum calls me pup, right, Mum?”

Arya manages an unsteady smile. “Right.”

Jon gets to his feet, a grin stretching across his face. “Mum,” he repeats pulling her into a hug. “Gods, you’re a _mum_.”

Arya sees Gendry over Jon’s shoulder, his gaze fixated on Cass, and says nothing.

* * *

On her very best day, Arya would rather be anywhere than a feast, particularly one full of people she doesn’t know, and today is most certainly not her best day. But the alternative to not attending is also stopping her daughter from attending, and all Cass has looked forward to is getting to attend the feast with Little Sam and Posey. And so Arya agrees to attend, miserable and doing her very best to avoid Gendry at every turn.

Brienne doesn’t say a word as Arya pours more wine into both of their cups. Of everyone in Winterfell, the only person Arya has ever explicitly told of Cass’s paternity was the knight, and she only did so after finding Brienne crying in the godswood over the death of Jaime Lannister. It is why Arya asks her and only her, “Why is House Baratheon here?”

“Ser Davos says Jon wants him to join the small council. Queen Daenerys isn’t so certain. When the trip was announced, Jon suggested he come along so they could discuss the matter.”

“Why didn’t Jon mention it in his letter?”

Brienne presses her lips together. “He thought it would be a nice surprise since the two of you are friends.”

Arya drains her wine cup and Brienne’s too for good measure.

* * *

There is something beautiful in Cassandra’s wildness.

Arya knows she is drunk, having had far too much wine in a vain attempt to forget Gendry is _here_ and he _knows_. She knows she should excuse herself and go to bed, try to approach everything tomorrow with clear eyes and a sober mind. And she is going to do that, she swears she is, but as she starts to get up from her table, she spots Cass.

Some musicians are playing drums, and dancing has started. What Cass and Posey are doing could hardly be considered dancing, but it makes Arya smile even more because of how free it all is. They are spinning around, both separately and then by joining hands, their skirts flying around them. Cass’s hair has come loose, now a dark thicket Arya knows will be monstrous to untangle, and bits of it stick to her sweaty face. Sometimes they imitate the movements of the adults, prancing on slippered feet, bowing to each other, but mostly they throw themselves about like wild creatures, laughing and giggling and shouting each other’s names in delight.

“You should have told me.”

Arya looks to her left, surprised to find Gendry standing there. His entire body is tense, his fists clenched at his side, his jaw tight enough that she can make out a muscle in his cheek twitching. He keeps his eyes fixed on Cass, her arm looped through Posey’s as they spin themselves silly, and her first instinct is to get angry. She wants to tell him not to make a scene, that she owed him nothing, that he doesn’t know anything at all, but instead she surprises them both.

“I know.”

Gendry finally looks at her, and Arya looks at him. She regrets it almost at once. She’s never felt like she’s able to hide from him the way she can with others and staring into his face after so long…It isn’t like the last time they reunited after so much time apart. Back then, she’d just been happy he was alive, that _she_ she was alive, that there was still a chance to have a little happiness before the end.

But then the end didn’t come, and Arya had no idea how to live happily ever after. She had no idea how to live at all. 

And she wants to tell him that. She wants to explain that she was so broken and lost that there were some nights she’d pack a bag and slip out to the stables and pack her saddle bag and prepare to ride off in any direction, leaving Cass to Sansa, who would raise her to be happy and safe, who would never even consider leaving Winterfell. She wants to tell him how many times she’s woken up soaked in sweat, heart beating like a caged bird in her chest, certain the Waif is still alive and about to kill her for good, already reaching for the dagger she still keeps beneath her pillow. She thinks about telling him how her nightmares are full of Ilyn Payne and the glint of the sunlight off of Ice’s blade as he lifted it to kill her father, how she can never think of Robb without remembering Grey Wind’s severed head shoved onto his body, how the first time Cass called her “mama,” Arya all but shoved her at Sansa because she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to be as strong for her child as Catelyn Stark was for them. 

She wants to say all that, but she doesn’t. She _can’t_. So instead she just looks at him, tries to let him see her sincerity.

And in front of them, Cass continues to dance.

* * *

When the knocks start on her chamber door, Arya groans as she rolls to her feet. Her head is swimming from wine, and her stomach gives an angry roll before settling. She is halfway to the door before Arya realizes it isn’t morning yet, that the moon is still high in the night sky and most of Winterfell is still abed. The only person who would come to her room this late would be Sansa and only for an emergency, and Arya is half-terrified something has happened to Cass when she swings open her door.

Instead of Sansa, there stands Gendry, clothes disheveled as if thrown on in haste, an expression on his face that reminds Arya of the one he wore that long-ago evening he proposed marriage.

The first and only time Gendry was ever in her bedroom, they conceived Cass against the stone walls, Arya clutching his shoulders so tightly, she is certain to this day she left bruises. It is all she can think about as he pushes his way past her, as she closes the door and puts the bar back down.

“It’s the middle of the bloody night,” she mumbles, trying to rub the hangover from her eyes. 

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“I don’t care!” Gendry winces at the volume of his voice in the confined space, dropping down into a loud whisper. “You hated me that much? What did I ever do – “

“I didn’t hate you! I _don’t_ hate you!”

“Then why didn’t you tell me? You knew – “ Gendry’s voice cracks. “You knew how I felt. You knew what I wanted. Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you – Why would you make her a bastard when she didn’t have to be?”

“I didn’t even know I was pregnant until it was halfway over. I didn’t know what I was going to do. You make it sound like I had some plan in all this. I didn’t.”

“Even if you didn’t know what you were going to do then, you had four years since then to tell me! You could’ve sent me a fucking raven – “

“You can’t read!”

“I can too! Ser Davos taught me!”

“How would I know that?!”

“Send a fucking raven!”

She isn’t entirely certain which of them moves first but the next thing Arya knows, she is wrapped around him, her hands grasping his hair, legs locked around his waist while Gendry stumbles towards her bed. This is absolute madness, and Arya knows they should stop, that this is the worst possible way to avoid having an actual discussion but _gods_ , does it feel good.

“I’m still mad at you,” Gendry gasps as Arya yanks at his shirt, wrestling it over his head before flinging it somewhere.

Arching into his touch as a calloused thumb rolls across her nipple, Arya counters, “I’m still mad at _you_.”

“For what?” He kisses her, long and hard, before rolling onto his back beside her, struggling out of his pants and boots. “I asked you to marry me! I told you I loved you!”

“And I still don’t know why you did a stupid thing like that.” Arya throws a leg over his body, his cock pressed against her ass as her hands slide over his chest. “I told you I’m not a lady. I don’t have any idea how to be a wife.”

“Did you know how to be a mother until you were one?”

She nips at his lower lip as she lowers herself onto him, moaning at the sensation. “Shut up, stupid.”

“I’m done shutting up,” Gendry retorts, running his hands over her back as they begin to move together. “I shut up then and I shouldn’t have. I should have told you – “

Arya clasps his face between her palms, forcing him to look at her. “Tell me after.”

Gendry nods, pulling her down for another kiss.

* * *

This time Arya wakes to the feel of someone’s soft touch tracing the scars over her side. For half of a second, the old impulse kicks in to start to fight, but then the night comes rushing back to her and she knows it is not an enemy in bed beside her.

“My stripes,” she mumbles against the pillow.

“Hmm?” Gendry asks, brushing a kiss against her shoulder. “Do they ever hurt?”

“Not so much anymore.” She turns to face him, and there is something about seeing Gendry _here_ that makes her chest tighten unexpectedly. His face somehow softens even further as he brushes a piece of hair away from her face with a smile. “What?”

“I never thought I’d get to wake up with you.”

It hits her suddenly, the same panicked feeling that drives her out of Winterfell for days, that makes her ride her horse before the sun rises, that makes her question whether or not to board a ship at White Harbor and sail to the ends of the earth. There is too much in her heart right now, the same as there was that night when Gendry offered her his whole new world, and Arya feels just as unprepared for it now as she did then.

“I’m sure there are lots of pretty ladies waking you at Storm’s End,” she snipes, rolling out of bed, keeping her back to him as she crosses to the armoire holding her clothes. “Different one every day, I’d wager.”

“You’d lose.” She hears him moving around as well, but she doesn’t turn to look. “They want me to wed, you know. The Stormlords, Ser Davos, even Jon, they all want me to take a wife.”

“Haven’t found a pretty enough lady yet?”

Arya spins, her right arm swinging as Gendry’s hand closes around her left wrist, the instinct to fight exploding, but he blocks the blow easily, crowding her body back against the armoire. “You’re the only bloody lady I’ve ever wanted to be my wife. And I know,” he rushes on when Arya opens her mouth to object, “that you’re not a lady but you are. You’re a lady because you just _are_ , and I don’t give a shit if you wear gowns or do whatever other ladies do. I just wanted _you_ , and I should have said that five years ago.” He releases her, taking a step back. “And you should have told me about the baby.”

Before Arya can respond, little fists begin to pound on her door like they do most mornings, and Arya pushes at his chest, putting a finger to her lips as she gestures for him to finish dressing.

She barely has a chance to open the door before Cass is rushing past her, exclaiming, “Uncle Jon said we can go swimming where he used to take you and Uncle Bran and he said Little Sam and Posey can come too and maybe I can get a practice sword of my own and – “ Noticing the stranger in the chamber, Cass stops, eyes flicking towards Arya before looking back at Gendry. “Who are you?”

“This is Lord Gendry Baratheon of Storm’s End,” Arya says, unable to keep the smirk from her face at the title that seems to make him squirm. 

“Oh.” Cass looks between them for a moment before asking, “How come he’s in your room? You don’t like people in your room.”

She isn’t wrong. There are only a few people Arya actually allows inside her chamber, and none are men. “I don’t mind him.”

Satisfied, she looks back at Gendry and smiles. “Would you like to come with us, Lord Gendry? Even Aunt Sansa’s coming and she never does anything fun.”

Arya pretends not to notice how much Gendry’s smile looks like Cass’s.

* * *

Arya finds the wooden stag on Cass’s bedside table when she comes to kiss her goodnight, the little creature standing sentry next to the lantern. Cass, who is scrambling to get beneath the bedclothes, sees Arya pick it up and says, “Ser Davos made me that.”

“Did he?” Arya sets it back on the table. “That was kind of him.”

“I like him.”

“I do too.” Unable to help herself, she asks, “Would you like to visit him and Uncle Jon and Lord Gendry in the South? Would you want to leave Winterfell?”

“Forever?”

“No, not forever. Not if you wanted to come back.”

“Could Posey come?”

“Probably not.”

“But I could come back and see her?”

Arya nods.

“And I could still visit Aunt Sansa and Uncle Bran and Brienne?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’d like to go.” Snuggling deeper into her pillows, something seems to occur to Cass. “You’ll come, right, Mama? I don’t want to go without you.”

The tears swell in Arya’s eyes so quickly, she isn’t prepared to stop them. Laying down beside her, she wraps her arms around Cass and promises, “I’d never let you go anywhere without me.”

* * *

Politics is boring. Arya thought so when she was younger and her opinion has not changed. The only reason she even agreed to sit in on this meeting with Sansa is because she is technically her castellan, but even so Arya feels as distracted as Cass during her reading lessons with Sam. She loves Jon, she does, but listening to him talk about the minute details of ruling and how it affects the kingdoms simply does not interest Arya.

It's also difficult to focus because Gendry is also in the meeting, and every time her eyes drift towards him, she’s reminded of the fact that an hour earlier she’d literally bitten a hole in a pillow to muffle any noise as Gendry’s mouth worked tirelessly at her cunt.

Ser Davos is explaining something about food being grown in the Reach when the commotion starts in the yard. Everyone’s head turns towards the sound, but Arya is already moving, easily picking out Cass’s voice amongst the din. She doesn’t waste time excusing herself or seeing if anyone follows; she doesn’t care. Her first and only priority is getting to Cass.

It’s the servant’s boy again. He and Cass roll around in the dirt, and this fight must have been happening for longer than Arya thought because Gilly, who usually lets the children sort these things out herself, has given baby Poppy to Little Sam to hold while she attempts to pull Cass and the boy apart. Even as she rushes to help Gilly, Arya sees a knot is forming on Cass’s forehead, the shadow of a bruise starting to appear beneath her left eye, and it makes the crunch of Cass’s fist connecting with the boy’s nose that much more satisfying as Arya pulls her away.

“You broke my nose!” the boy shouts as blood gushes from his nose, the urge to fight now supplanted with the childish panic blood always brings.

“I’ll kill you!” Cass shrieks, sounding more animal than child, her limbs flailing wildly, and Arya nearly drops her, quickly adjusting her grip. 

“You’re mad!” The boy spits, trying to keep the blood from his mouth, and Gilly presses a cloth against his nose, trying to staunch the bleeding. “I didn’t do nothing to you!”

Cass just screams, a sound born of such frustration and anger, Arya recognizes it from her nightmares, from her memories, from every moment of such overwhelming unfairness. Arya turns Cass in her arms, and it startles her, how rather than continuing to fight, Cass instead starts to cry, wrapping her limbs around her mother and holding on for dear life. As Gilly takes the boy to be seen by Sam, Arya looks at Little Sam and Posey, the question on her face.

“He called her a bad word,” Posey offers.

“What bad word?”

The Tarly siblings exchange sidelong glances before Little Sam softly says, “Bastard.”

Suddenly Arya wants to scream too.

* * *

“I’ll make her a Stark if that’s what you want.”

Arya doesn’t look over at Jon, keeping her eyes fixed on Winterfell in the distance, the early morning sun just starting to peek over the trees. “I don’t.”

“Baratheon then?”

“Don’t know why you’d say that.”

“Maybe because she looks exactly like Gendry. Maybe because you two aren’t terribly discreet with your sneaking about.”

Arya snorts. “Discreet enough you didn’t know the first time.”

Jon chuckles. “I don’t understand. You obviously like him. You have his child. Why hide it at all? The wars are over, Arya. We’re all safe now.”

She shakes her head, twisting the reins in one hand. “Because they don’t _feel_ over. Because I know how quickly they can start all over again. And if it does, if they do, I can’t…”

“You can’t what, can’t be happy when it does?”

 _I can’t lose another family. I can’t watch more people I love die._

“Talk to Gendry. If he wants her legitimized, I don’t care. It’s just a name.”

And then Arya digs her heels into her horse’s sides and leaves Jon on the hill, riding fast enough to dry the tears that might manage to escape.

* * *

“You don’t need to marry me,” Gendry says, curled around Arya’s back, sweat cooling on their skin. “I mean…I don’t need a septon to make what I feel for you legitimate.”

“Your lords wouldn’t like it.” She skims her fingers up and down his arm, hating how much she enjoys the warmth of his embrace. “They want you to marry their pretty daughters.”

“I don’t care about them or their daughters. Just you.” He presses a kiss behind her ear. “Just _our_ daughter.”

It is the first time he’s explicitly referred to Cass as theirs, and Arya waits for the rush of indignation, the possessiveness to fill her chest and insist upon claiming Cassandra as hers and hers alone. But it doesn’t come, and Arya realizes just how tired she is of fighting.

“It’s a Baratheon name, you know,” she blurts out.

“What is?”

“Cassandra.”

Gendry pulls her more fully against him and buries his face in her hair. Arya closes her eyes and sleeps soundly for the first time in years.

* * *

Sansa blinks in surprise when Arya finishes speaking. It takes several minutes before she manages, “I don’t think you’ve ever asked me permission to do anything in your entire life.”

“I’m not asking permission. I’m just…” Arya shrugs. “She’s yours too. You changed just as many swaddling clothes, you stayed up nights with her, you taught her just as much as I have. I gave birth to her, but you’re her mum too.”

Tears fill Sansa’s eyes. “I love you both. And it will certainly be quieter and less exciting without either of you here. But I also want you to be happy and I want Cass to have what we had.” She wipes away a stray tear. “I’d give everything back for another day with them, to have Father smile at me, to have Mother brush my hair. Sometimes I see a man in the distance, and I think it’s Robb coming home or Rickon all grown up now. Sometimes I think…I think I never would’ve survived all the terrible years if I hadn’t had all the wonderful ones before them.” Sansa brushes at the tears falling more steadily on her cheeks. “We owe it to Cass to give her every wonderful year she can possibly have while we can still control it.”

Arya wipes at her own cheeks, startled by the tears she finds there. It’s been years since she’s heard Sansa speak about their family in anything other than the most generic of terms, and she wishes it didn’t hurt so much to remember.

“What if it all goes terribly wrong?”

Sansa smiles. “Then come home.”

For so many years, she’d wandered around the world certain there was no home left for her. As Arya embraces her big sister, she finally understands just how wrong she was.

* * *

“Is Storm’s End very far away?” Cass asks as Arya and Gendry sit on the edge of her bed to tuck her in for the night.

“Yes, but we’ll still visit Winterfell.” Arya pulls back the bedclothes and Cass scrambles beneath them. “And Sam and Gilly said when Poppy is a bit bigger, they’ll come visit too and bring Little Sam and Posey.”

“And I’ll have a different name there?”

“Yes, you’ll be Cassandra Baratheon instead of Cassandra Snow.”

“Because Lord Gendry is my father?”

Gendry smiles. “You don’t have to call me ‘lord,’ sweetling.”

“What do I call you then?”

Arya tries not to smile as Gendry sputters, “Whatever you like. You can call me Gendry or – or Father or – “

“Posey calls Sam ‘papa.’ Can I call you that?”

“Yes, of course.”

As Arya pulls the bedclothes up to her chin the way Cass likes, Cass looks between the two of them before asking, “Are we a family now?”

Arya freezes, her eyes darting towards Gendry’s own startled face. She’s avoided thinking the word since Cass was born, stupidly, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that with Cassandra’s birth, she created a family. It scares her more than acknowledging Sansa or Bran or even Jon, those who came before and survived the worst of it. If she thought for even a moment that she and Cass were a family of their own, it meant they could be destroyed, separated by cruel men and their acts. It is why she bars the door so Cass cannot climb into her bed, it is why she always has a pack hidden in her armoire to grab and go, it is why she’s imagined leaving Cass to Sansa a thousand times so she can go off and destroy the parts of her that can be hurt, to truly become No One who will never mourn a single person.

And it is why when the man she loved told her she was beautiful and he loved her and nothing meant anything without her, she sent him away.

“Yes,” she finally manages, surprised at the strength in her voice. “For the rest of your life, that’s what we are.”

Satisfied, Cass lifts her face up for kisses, and Arya’s heart swells as Gendry reaches over and squeezes her hand.

She still doesn’t know how to be a lady or how to be a wife. Some days she isn’t certain she knows how to be a mother. On her worst days she still isn’t even sure she knows how to be a person.

But she is still here. She is still trying. She will keep trying. And if the worse happens again, she will come home because home still exists: in Winterfell, in Sansa, in Bran, in Jon, in Cass, in Gendry.

Arya Stark is home.


End file.
